Friday's New York Times puzzle solved: February 2, 2018

My time: 17:37, which is not very good.

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This is a pretty tough themeless by Randolph Ross.  It has some nice fill, like WITCH HUNT, BLAME GAME, DAREDEVILS, ANTI-LABOR, DOG SPAS, STALINIST, and even SEXCAPADE ("portmanteau for lovers").

Hey, ESTATE CAR!  I learned that Britishism for station wagon on January 24!  That helped a lot.

And Charlotte AMALIE, capital of the US Virgin islands, came up on October 1, 2017.  Somehow it stuck with me.

"Total" is an amusingly sneaky clue for RUN TO.

"Iraq war danger" could have been *WMD or *RPG but it's IED.

Randolph got me this time.  The obvious but wrong answer to "sources of jam, jelly, and juice" is *GRAPES but it's GUAVAS.  Ick, guava juice.

"Taunts" is JIVES?  I put *JIBES and was sure it was right.  I mean, yes, I know JIVE is foolish talk, but I don't think you say, "He taunted the idiot with laughter and jives."  Or, "what a clever jive!"  It's uncountable.  Ugh.

"Author much used by other authors" is PETER ROGET.  I didn't know he was a physician!  Or that his name was Peter.  Also, he lived to the age of 90.

Apparently EL CAPITAN is in Yosemite Park.  It's 7,500 feet.  "For climbers, the challenge is to climb up the sheer granite face. There are many named climbing routes, all of them arduous, including Iron Hawk and Sea of Dreams."

TETRA- the prefix means, of course, four.  In the word TETRAfluoride it just means a compound with four fluorines.

I don't approve of the abbreviation HGT for height.

UNCAS was a real sachem of the Mohegans who lived in the 17th century.  He allied with the English against the Pequots.  In James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, UNCAS is the main character.  They call him the "bounding elk."

KOA stands for Kampgrounds Of America.  That's why their customer is an RV-ER.

I've heard of BUD SELIG!  He was the ninth baseball commissioner.  He's the Commissioner Emeritus. During his tenure, he oversaw a lot of changes to baseball that people who care about baseball care about.

"Subject for Raoul Dufy and Henri Matise" is the SEINE.  Dufy was a French Fauvist.  He is famous for a big fresco called "The Electricity Fairy," commissioned for the Pavillon de la Lumière et de l’Électricité.

ASSAM, a state in northeast India, is known for its tea and its silk.

That's a lot of trouble to document.  I only OPE I do better next time.